


v; A Luncheon at the Temps Commission

by Theo_Thaur



Series: 31 Days of TUA Whump [5]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s01e06 The Day That Wasn't, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I really enjoyed writing the Handler for this one, One Shot, Whump, canon compliant up until a certain point, five being five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:53:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26860024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theo_Thaur/pseuds/Theo_Thaur
Summary: Whumptober 2020 submission. No 5. "WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?": On the Run, Failed Escape, Rescue.------Five strikes a deal to work with the Commission so his family can survive the apocalypse, but the Handler doesn't think Five will be as loyal as he acts.(AU: The Handler finds a method of keeping Five from jumping, on 'The Day that Wasn't'.)
Series: 31 Days of TUA Whump [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951234
Kudos: 14
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	v; A Luncheon at the Temps Commission

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGERS: Gun use, canon-typical violence, power surpression.
> 
> NOTE: Usually I italicize to show flashbacks but in this one-shot, the few italianized lines indicated it has been taken directly from that episode to better parallel canon.

_v; A Luncheon at the Temps Commission_

It was odd being back in the Commission, not as a killer but as a… manager. For now. Five had other plans, of course, but even going through the motions with the Hindenburg had felt unusual. He almost liked it, sitting down at a desk and typing up a report, following trails of logic to most swiftly execute the timeline as it was 'supposed' to happen. It was soothing, even if his skills with a typewriter left something to be desired. As a younger man, he'd still been expected to visit the Commission regularly, so that his briefcase was carefully logged between missions. He'd kept his head down and stuck to the jobs, because that was all they'd ever been. Five wasn't sure if he regretted his earlier compliance. He didn't _want_ to be a killer, for a very large part of him that was true. But he also would do what it took to survive, and what it took for his family to survive. He'd existed in 2019 only briefly so far, and most of the others had already driven him up a wall --as much as they could've with the Commission wanting them dead--, but it was home. They weren't all he knew; he'd lived more of a life than what he'd lost at thirteen, and a longer life than all of them, but they'd been the only real constant he'd ever had. Except for Dolores. At the end of the day, he knew his family, and they'd somehow gotten the closest anyone had gotten to truly knowing him.

There were still two days before the apocalypse was supposed to happen, and _more_ if everything didn't go to complete shit. He needed to get his hands on a briefcase, but first, he had to know what was going to cause the apocalypse. Unfortunately, the Handler had been a step ahead, planting a folder on Dot's desk that meant nothing. And then he was being ushered out of the bathroom for lunch with a folder still shoved under his sweater. Five had managed to discreetly slip it into a trashcan in the canteen, but still. He'd sat through re-tellings of various Commission stories, no doubt all of which having been carefully picked by her as to reveal nothing of any value. The Handler had mentioned his previous career as an assassin seven times --Five had counted--, not including her side tangent in trying to get him to say where and when his favorite Commission trip had sent him, like it was all a game. Lunch was winding down, and although Five assumed she could ignore the buzzer herself, it was likely she had meetings planned, which was all the better for him. He'd stuck to water, apple wedges, and a roll. Better to keep it light. 

The Handler smiled, pushing a glass tin towards him, filled with small, individually wrapped candies. "Take one. I saw you making eyes at them," she prompted, smirking a little before backing off and breathing in a long drag of smoke from her cigarette holder. On principle Five had some reservations about eating sweets while stuck in a child's body. He wanted to be respected.

"I'll have to pass," he said simply.

"Afraid of taking candy from a stranger?" The Handler replied, her voice raising just slightly at the end as she raised an eyebrow. Five snorted.

"Is that what we are? Strangers?" He meant that genuinely.

"I was hoping you'd ask me that," she replied cryptically. "Just a bite?" Five complied reluctantly. He needed to get her off her guard, it was for the better. The Handler did enough misdirection to not receive any back. He read the label, before peeling the paper-y wrapper off and popping it into his mouth. It had a consistency like toffee, but richer somehow. It was more than taste or texture though, there was some sort of perceived _otherness_. She leaned forward in her chair. "What do you think?"

"It's good," he answered simply. 

"Good, is that all? Doesn't it make you _think_ of a time?" She laughed. Five's brow furrowed slightly. It seemed unlikely that it was anything more than nostalgia left over from some mission, but more odd occurrences had happened. He had a hard time ruling it out. Things worked differently in the Commission.

"The nineteen-fifties," Five answered, forcing himself to sound certain for the Handler. She nodded. 

"Very good! It was a collaboration between the metaphysics department and my daughter. A labor of love, really. Based off of the ever popular 'Fudge Mutt'," she supplied.

"You have a daughter?" Five asked bluntly. She rolled her eyes, taking one last drag of her cigarette before snuffing it out in the ashtray on her desk. 

"Details, details. Nothing to worry your pretty little head about, dear." Her assurances meant nothing, naturally. "Now, don't you have somewhere to be?" Five raised an eyebrow. "Wait for it," she answered, holding a finger up. They waited for a moment in silence before the buzzer rang signalling the end of lunch. The Handler gave him a knowing smile.

Five stood. He knew he needed to execute his attack as soon as possible, might as well get it out of the way while everyone was off-guard having been at lunch. He made a bee-line for the Tube Room, pushing open the door to find none other than Gloria and Dot. He leaned in as close as he could.

" _\--to Hazel and Cha-Cha immediately,"_ Dot said.

_"Uh…?"_

_"Immediately."_

_"Okay! Yeah,"_ Gloria squeaked. 

Five backed away from the door when Dot scurried out of the Tube Room, or rather she moved as quickly as one could in business attire. Five closed his eyes, quickly conjuring up a precise image of being in front of Gloria. But he felt nothing. Five stared down at hands, so used to depending on his powers and finding they'd suddenly cut off. How was that even possible? It didn't matter, he didn't have time for that. Five briskly closed the distance to Gloria, who was standing by the chutes with her reading glasses up on her nose as she scanned through the contents of the order. She looked up when she heard him --so much for the element of surprise. Her eyes widened, and she dropped the canister and paper, the former thudding to the floor and the latter sinking down slowly. Powers or not, he easily cut her off before she could get to the rotary sitting on her desk, and uppercut her. A bit awkward considering the height difference, but he wouldn't let that get in the way. Gloria fell to the ground, and Five turned back to the canister, picking up the order. 

* * *

**_THE COMMISSION OFFICE MEMORANDUM_**

* * *

_To_ _HAZEL AND CHA-CHA_

 _From_ _C893467A_

 _Date_ _0893457983_

_REASSIGNMENT: PROTECT HAROLD JENKINS._

**_C893467 T.A._ **

* * *

  
  


Taking a fresh memorandum slip, he stationed himself at Gloria's desk and slid it into the typewriter, beginning on a message or two of his own. Finding the corresponding button on the typewriter was still difficult, naturally he would've been no better on a computer keyboard. 

Then, a siren went off. _"Please evacuate. Remain calm. Do not panic,_ " a robotic woman's voice announced over the speaker. "Your alert has been notified."

Five rose to his feet, looking around and seeing Gloria had moved herself to a panic button at the edge of the room. Shit. A group of eight or so, dressed in dark, sleek fabric flooded into the Tube Room within moments. Gas masks were pulled over their faces, the lenses glowing red --they were uniform to each other, some sort of military division, but Five didn't have the time to think any further of it. They noticed him immediately, charging towards him with too much vigor to have believed that he was just a lost school child --though then again, it seemed like they were in a 'fight now, ask questions' later stage. Five did what came instinctually as their glowing red masks bore down on him, focusing on a jump and not worrying about the trajectory of bullets, because within a split second he didn't picture himself as being there to catch them. Except he _was_ . Two bullets were fired, which seemed a fair response to something that looked like neither hostility nor surrender. One grazed his neck, the other sunk into the side of his torso. Five bit his cheek, his face scrunching up as he tried to assess himself. He… _thought_ the second bullet had gone cleanly through and not knocked into anything too important on the way out. The guns lowered, and Five took a slow step towards them. 

"You see me? Do I really look like I'm about to put up a fight?" He demanded when they raised their weapons. Five let them push him along, and knew just where he was being taken --straight back to the Handler. He ground his teeth together and didn't say a word, waiting it out, counting the turns. Five may not be perfect, but he'd been working on a mental map of the Commission for a long time. It helped with jumps, it helped with knowing where the bathrooms were for stopping over between missions. Where he wanted to go was _very_ easy to recall. 

As soon as they made the turn, branching as closely as they would ever get, Five cut away. They'd been right behind in escorting him, but hadn't held him, which allowed Five to start running. He ducked into the diverging hallway, haphazardly pushing a cart of files behind himself and keeping as low as he could. The thrill of the chase was a much needed distraction from the pain of being shot, although it also served as a harsh reminder not to let them within eyeshot too long. About as nimbly as he could --it was a mind over matter thing, his mind said no but his body begrudgingly said yes--, he slammed into a huge window overlooking a balcony, shielding his face from the glass as he crashed into it. It shattered, tearing at his skin and uniform freely, but he made the landing onto the balcony, a measly four feet lower than the window he'd jumped from. Five didn't give himself time to think about it, or how much he could still push himself to do when he didn't have his powers to rely on. He ran along the walkway, the metal clunking underneath his feet slightly. The building had evacuated, so he had it all to himself, if he just kept going. The walkway began to curve slightly, which was how he knew he was close; the Briefcase Room was built by a corner. 

There was a gap between the railing and the floor, he saw his space of opportunity as the small, rectangular building below him came into view. He slid underneath the railing, bracing himself to jump down and land on what was about a story below. Then Five heard yelling and a distant rattle as soldiers no doubt dropped onto the walkway. He braced himself, slipping down past the overlook, as the concrete floor came closer and closer… Five made half the landing. One foot felt nearly right, but took the brunt of the weight and impact, bending immediately under the force. He fell forward, slamming against the concrete in what he knew meant a large purple bruise over his knee, at _least._ Five managed to not crack his head open by catching himself with his hands. Blood dripped from the gunshot wound onto the floor as he pushed himself up, having saturated his sweater vest at one time or another. The desk in front of the Briefcase Room was empty, he stumbled towards the door, pulling the handle and finding it to be locked. The alarm rang out still, the metal walkway grunting slightly as soldiers ran across it. Five made a loud noise of frustration, kicking at the lock with his good leg but finding that putting his weight on his bad leg was _not_ a good idea. Then, there were gunshots. They rang out through the area, taking out the lit up Briefcase Room sign, and hitting the door around him. A lucky shot narrowly avoided his hand as he tried to force open the door in an enraged frenzy, instead shooting off the lock. Five threw the door open, grabbing the nearest available briefcase to find that the number of bullets being shot increased dramatically, and that there were far more soldiers, pouring out from other doors into the space. Glass windows of the Briefcase Room shattered. He should've jumped back in time, even so. Five looked down and realized there was a hole in his briefcase. The shots withered off into quiet at some point after the alarm had been shut off. The guns of at least a hundred red-eyed, masked strangers were still trained on him. It was a pretty usual Thursday. 

Out in the back of a group, Five watched from a shattered window as soldiers moved aside quietly. The Handler emerged, a cloche hat perched gently over her hair, which she hasn't been wearing during lunch. Five wondered what he'd done to merit the slight outfit change. He watched her come closer but made no acknowledgement. She seemed a little disappointed in him, but Five didn't know what she'd been expecting. The Handler stopped in front of the window casually, disregarding the broken glass --though to be fair it had mostly shattered in Five's direction. 

"Quite the temper tantrum you've thrown," she remarked finally, breaking the silence. 

"I did what I had to."

"And look where that got you," the Handler replied, looking back at the soldiers, with their guns still cocked and aimed at Five. He said nothing, but had the dignity to set the useless briefcase down. "I thought you were smarter than running off and making such a mess," she commented, before sighing. "But no man is perfect, I suppose. I just don't know why you of all people would be so… dramatic. You always had such a steady head on your shoulders."

"You don't know anything about me." The Handler smiled, a conflicted look in her eyes.

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have already," she said.

"Didn't say you wouldn't," he answered evenly. 

"You're bleeding out, Five. We have a medical division. Come _home_ , get some rest." Five scoffed.

" _You_ took home away from me when you fed me something to suppress my power. So why don't you just shoot me in the head if I'm such a nuisance?"

"Don't be so brusque. I'm not here to kill you, sweetheart. I'm here to _rescue_ you."


End file.
